Vodka Night (short story)
“Vodka Night”
Answering the phone was my first mistake. The clock read exactly midnight. It was an unseasonably warm Saturday in late December. I was in my dorm, curled up in my bed, reading Dante’s Inferno and cuddling a teddy bear that had been a gift from one of my ex-boyfriends. I was wearing my red silk pajamas. I had a steaming cup of tea next to me on the desk. I was perfectly comfortable, and had no intention of moving for the rest of the night, except to turn out the light when I got too tired to read Dante.
Then the phone rang.
I don’t, for the life of me, know why I picked it up. The Caller ID warned me away from any action by proudly displaying the name “Franny,” my term of endearment for the pest commonly known as Mike. His first name, on his birth certificate, is Francis. I personally think it suits him, much more so than “Mike.” Mike sounds like a generic guy- won’t ask for directions, likes football, drinks beer, doesn’t do laundry. Francis sounds like a geeky snob- mixes drinks that even an alcoholic wouldn’t be able to recognize, squeezes Lord Byron quotes into conversation even when they don’t actually fit, and considers himself on par with the following- Zach Braff, Alexis Dennisoff, Neil Gaiman, and Batman. I am still completely unable to justify answering the phone.
“Heeeeey, Jess,” the malignant tumor drawled in my ear, “What’s going on?”
“I’m reading.” I was positive that my tone had sounded completely uninterested in anything he had to say.
“Sweet. Cool. So, nothing. Come party with us. We’re down at Dave’s place, in the Quads.”
“It’s freezing outside, moron. I’m staying in my room.”
“It’s Saturday! And you haven’t partied with us in weeks. Stop being so lame.”
I made a guttural noise to suggest that I really didn’t care whether or not he thought I was lame.
“Come on, Jess. We never hang out anymore.”
I bit my tongue, trying to think of other excuses for not wanting to drink with him. I could, for example, have brought up the fact that I only ever cried at parties if here was there. I could have also made an excuse about schoolwork, or needing to sleep. But, he was right, which was something I was not exactly inclined to admit on a frequent basis. I hadn’t partied with him in nearly a month- and it had been about that long since my last drink. I guess I could blame the stress and strain of homework for the travesty of acquiescence fell from my lips.
“What are you guys drinking? I’m not getting out of bed for beer.”
“Excellent! We’ve got rum, and there’s vodka in my apartment. Go up to my room and get it, and then come down and hang with us. We’re in one-thirty-four.”
So, I hung up the phone, got dressed- a pair of jeans and a black hoodie were just enough for the occasion- and walked down to Francis’s apartment. The walk was nice- it was nearly fifty degrees outside, and I had drinking to look forward to. That’s just my nature- I’ll get out of bed at any time in the day or night for vodka. I blame it on heritage- my mom’s side is Russian.
The vodka was easy enough to find, seeing as it was the only item in the freezer. Alcohol in hand, I strolled over to Dave’s dormitory. I could hear Francis’ obnoxious, nasal voice from all the way down the hall. He was talking loudly at whoever was in the room, about Hitler and Mussolini. I sighed to myself, smiling slightly. The most predictable thing about Franny is the way he keeps conversation centered around the things about which he is knowledgeable.
“The party’s here,” I stated as I walked in the door, holding up the bottle of vodka for everyone to see. I really wasn’t kidding. I was standing in a roomful of guys- all freshmen, except for Franny. They were playing some videogame with that little Italian guy in the red trousers. I had walked into the very center of Lame-ville. I felt a sudden, intense regret- if I’d read more about Hell, I would’ve already memorized the lay of the land. As I stood, I was powerless against the forces of evil.
“ ‘Bout time you got here!” Francis smirked at me, running a hand through his messy, blonde hair. I smirked right back.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me to all of your little friends?” I asked, casting an eye around the room. A couple of them were actually kind of attractive.
“Oh, yeah. You know Dave, and then there’s Steve, Jim, Dan, Seth, Mike, JD, Tim,” he rattled off, pointing around the room. A chorus of dull “Hi”s and “Yo”s greeted me.
“This is Ryan’s girlfriend,” Franny stated, gesturing to me grandly as if this introduction was perfect. I made a face, then turned away from Francis to address the other guys in the room.
“But you can call me Jess, as I’m sure my parents didn’t see fit to name me ‘Ryan’s Girlfriend’ at birth.” That, and I didn’t really like being immediately associated with Ryan every time Franny introduced me to someone. We were in an open relationship at the time, not that that meant much to either Ryan or Francis. They were good friends. I’m sure Ryan had asked him to keep an eye on me.
“Yeah, Jess is a lightweight,” Francis scoffed, handing me the bottle of rum, “So she’ll probably only be conscious for a little while before she completely passes out. Or starts crying.”
I took a swig from the bottle of rum.
“Oh yeah? I bet I can hold more than you. Seriously. How many shots do you think I can do? Gimmie a number!”
“Come on, Jess. Be serious.” Franny was shifting his weight nervously, but his tone was anything but serious. “We don’t even have a shotglass.”
“Like I give two flying fucks. Don’t challenge me unless you can deal with me stepping up to the plate, kay? Unless you’re just scared that I’ll show you up.”
A challenge to face a challenge. Always the best way to get what you want out of “Mike.” Especially when he’s hanging out with his buddies.
“Fine. Fine! I bet you can’t hold eight,” Francis shot back, a slow grin emerging on that ridiculously pompous face of his.
“Great,” I said, eager to make him look like a fool in front of his friends, “Hand me the vodka.”
Francis’s mouth went slack.
“The vodka? I thought you were drinking rum. The vodka’s 90 proof. And we don’t have a chaser, or anything.”
“We’ve got popcorn,” offered Dave, who hadn’t even taken his eyes off of the television screen. It was actually an amusing sight- a big cartoon gorilla was throwing barrels at the little Italian guy in the red trousers, and Dave kept physically dodging out of the way, as if the barrels were going to pop out of the screen and bash him in the face.
“Popcorn? Excellent!” I laughed, “That’ll be fine.”
Francis frowned. For a moment, I thought I could see a glimpse of him becoming practical, generic “Mike.”
“You’re gonna regret this, Jess,” he warned, reaching across himself to pick up the bottle of vodka. He furrowed his eyebrows at me, as if in one last attempt to make me back out of my own challenge.
“Franny,” I smiled, reaching to take the bottle from him, eager to bring it to my lips and let my nose curl under the noxious smell, “I live with no regrets.”
*
She snatched the bottle right out of my hand, twisted off the cap, and chugged a solid three shots. I think my eyes grew to the size of dinner plates as I watched her mouth and nose twist into several different shapes before finally settling back down.
“That was definitely at least three shots, Jess,” I said, reaching to take the bottle from her. She snatched it up against her chest, cradling it like it was a child, and hissing at me like a pole cat.
“NO! It was ONE shot and this is mine until I have mooooore!” she whinnied, then proceeded to chug another three shots at least, from the bottle. I could’ve washed my hands of her at that point, I know it. It was already fairly obvious that she wasn’t going to last very long- not at the rate she was going. But, in a way, I was responsible for her. I was the one that invited her to join us. So I wrestled the bottle from her grasp and kicked back a shot or two of my own.
We went on like that for hours- the shot-by-shot analysis only really consisting of her flinging violent insults at me, and me parrying them with startling skill. It was a lot easier than you’d expect. Jess doesn’t think on her feet very well, and she’s even less prone to intelligence when she’s drinking.
Sometimes when Jess is around I find it difficult to remember why I ever actually endeavor to spend time with her. However, after she’d had “five” shots that totaled approximately fifteen shots, and had gone down in flames (cursing and screaming) in twelve separate games of Donkey Kong, the question of why I enjoy her presence was a little less enigmatic. Despite the fact that she is an offensive, quarrelsome, vulgar shrew, she’s extremely entertaining to watch. Sometimes she reminds me of monkeys in the zoo- chaotic and primal, with the innate desire to fling poo, and absolutely no idea that she’s hilarious. Especially when she’s drunk.
“And another thing,” she slurred at me, brandishing a finger, “I’ve got a better memory than you.”
“Jess, I’m a History major. You absolutely do not have a better memory than I do,” I grinned, charming and dashing in my serenity.
“Oh? Oh. Oh! Oh-kay,” she said, searching for her thoughts with more than a little bit of trouble, “Okay! The prologue to Romeo and Juliet, on the count of three. One… two…”
She trailed off, staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t help but laugh outright. Fortunately, she was too drunk to notice.
“Three?” I suggested, grinning to the other guys in the room. They were all busy watching Dave absolutely destroy Jim at Frogger to pay much attention, so I turned my attention back to Jess.
Now, here’s the thing you need to understand about Jess. She has a terrible memory. She constantly forgets really important things, like meetings, schedules and assignments. In the course of conversation, she often forgets very simple, rudimentary words like “spoon” or “door” and replaces them with “thing.” Sometimes, when you can’t understand what she’s trying to describe, she’ll use intensely descriptive sentences like “The thing that you use to do stuff,” in order to elucidate her meaning. This girl’s memory was the perfect argument against smoking marijuana. Even if she wasn’t lying, and she really hasn’t ever smoked weed, she speaks as though she’s been blazed from birth.
But there she was, drunk out of her mind, flawlessly repeating the prologue from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. When she’d finished, I couldn’t help but applaud.
“Wow. That was pretty impressive,” I said, smiling and patting her on the head. I ruffled her hair a little bit, because I know that she hates it when I do that. She batted my hand away like an awkward, clumsy kitten. Her grin lit up her face as bright as a jack-o-lantern.
“Oh! Oh-kay. Oh-KAY! Now it’s your turn. Anything from Shakespeare,” she squealed, leaning all the way back in her chair and letting her head fall back as well. She stared up at the ceiling and giggled as I cleared my throat.
“Okay. I’m doing Hamlet,” I said.
“Suits you,” she snickered, “Hamlet was the first emo-kid. If Gertrude had given him some Zoloft, everything would’ve been all better.”
I ignored her interruption. Jess loved to call people “Emo,” after the recent trend that involved effeminate boys dressing in girl’s clothes, wearing makeup, and singing about depression and getting dumped. Instead, I started in on the “To be, or not to be” speech, which is probably one of my favorite soliloquies in all of William Shakespeare’s works.
“To be, or not to be- that is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to sufer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream-“
“No, idiot,” Jess interrupted again, “You missed it. You missed a part. Skipped it. Skipped right over it.” She was giggling again. “Hopscotch! Skipped over “a thousand natural shocks” and consummation. Or something.”
I was irritated, of course. I hadn’t missed a part, and she’d completely thrown off my rhythm. I was about to tell her so, but then I noticed that she wasn’t really paying attention. In fact, she had her eyes closed, and was holding her head, muttering something. I moved closer to her, putting my hands on her shoulders.
“Jess? Jess, are you okay?”
“I gots… gots a spinning room. It’s spinning. Making me really dizzy.”
I could see exactly where this was going. Last time Jess had talked about the room spinning, she’d ended up asleep in my bed, snoring like a freight train. The next morning I had to call Ryan and explain the situation before she did, because she was bound to tell him that I’d made advances on her. Which, by the way, is absolutely untrue. Ryan is a close friend of mine. I would never betray him like that. As it is, I spend a lot of time with Jess at his request, making sure that she keeps herself out of trouble.
It’s a fair concern. Jess is very prone to getting into trouble.
“Jess, it’s time to go home now,” I said, shaking her very slightly to get her attention. After a few moments, she finally opened her eyes and looked at me. Her green eyes were just barely focusing. I grimaced, letting go of her shoulders and grabbing her by the waist in an attempt to get her to stand. It worked for a few moments, until I relaxed my support of her, and her legs collapsed in beneath her.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” she repeated in a hushed voice, standing on her own and stumbling towards the door, “Time to go home. Home. Home.”
I turned and said goodbye to the guys, then rushed out into the hallway after her. She pushed me away, stumbling towards the exit and muttering things that I couldn’t understand, or even really hear.
“Jess. Jess! I am walking you home.” I was practically shouting. It is so difficult to get that girl’s attention when she’s drunk.
“No. I’m fine. I’m fine. Go play with the little Italian guy,” she said, suddenly staggering sideways and banging into the wall. I laughed, putting an arm around her shoulder.
“Don’t argue with me. I’m walking you home.”
Jess leaned into me, and we headed back up to her dormitory. It was a warm night, and the stars were bright. The sky was starting to lighten. It would be sunrise by the time I made it back to my apartment. We walked in silence almost the entire way there, until we were nearly to the door of her building. Then, she turned to me, her eyes a bit more focused now, and laughed.
“What?” I asked, not entirely devoid of curiosity. Her laugh subsided into a cheery smile.
“Nothing much,” she said, punching me in the shoulder playfully, “Just that I guess I don’t completely hate you.”
“Oh, excellent,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm that she probably didn’t pick up on, “We’re making progress.”
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